Eddie Koch
A new batch of secret documents handed to court in the Malan murder trial last week, provide a rare glimpse into the workings of the State Security Council (SSC) set up to co- ordinate the National Party’s “total strategy” against insurrection in the 1980s.
Apart from the light they shed on the military’s links with Inkatha, the documents provide details about some of the measures used by the “securocrat” government to defend the apartheid state.
The papers show at least two current cabinet ministers who sat on the SSC, FW de Klerk and Pik Botha, were aware of the paramilitary operation at the centre of the Malan trial.
They also provide evidence that military intelligence had plans to extend Operation Marion, a clandestine programme to use Inkatha as a bastion against the African National Congress, into the other homelands at the time.
A set of SSC minutes, dated February 3 1996, shows De Klerk and Botha were present when Operation Marion was discussed. An appendix to these minutes indicate – under the heading Paramilitary Element – that members of the council were instructed to ensure “support for Chief Minister Buthelezi … is kept clandestine to protect his image. The highest level of security must be given to the support programme.”
The same minutes, together with another document dated December 20 1985, give intriguing accounts of:
l How Botha planned a buy-out of Capital Radio, then broadcasting independent news from the Transkei. “Minister Botha reported the Transkei had been consulted about broadcasts from Capital Radio but, despite promises, the situation has not improved. It is being considered to buy out the radio station in order to bring the situation under control.”
l Weapons sales to China. A section of the minutes – headed Marketing and Export of Weapons to the Peoples Republic of China – says Armscor had been told to work with the “greatest circumspection in this regard because the government had no official trade links with the communist country”.
l Compulsory uniforms at white schools. An item with De Klerk’s name attached, then minister of national education, calls attention to “efforts by undermining elements to create dissatisfaction with the authorities by using misconceptions about the unprocedural application of rules regarding compulsory school uniforms”. It recommends that the National Intelligence Service investigate these activities and that the work of the End Conscription Campaign in white schools be “resisted”.
l Plans to extend projects like Operation Marion to other homelands. An appendix to the minutes says: “it must be accepted that if the Republic of South Africa’s special support for KwaZulu is successful, it will open the way for similar projects in other national states (including the Transkei, Bophutatswana, Venda and Ciskei)”.
Defence teams in the trial this week argued that the documents at no stage state that the “offensive” paramilitary unit provided to Inkatha would be used to attack ANC members.
However, Brigadier Willem van Deventer, head of counter-intelligence for the the military, told the court during his testimony that the word “offensive” would be used to mean attack.
A document in the collection, which summarises a meeting in 1989 between Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Brigadier Cornelius van Niekerk, says: “The chief minister … hinted that ‘offensive actions were still a requirement, meaning the use of hit squads’.”